Lithium‐Ion Batteries: A Review of Materials, Design Advances, Sustainability Challenges, and Future Prospects

ABSTRACT Lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) have dominated the rechargeable battery market for over two decades, serving as a hub of extensive research and development that has resulted in numerous breakthroughs and innovations. The global demand for LIBs has increased due to their extensive use in portable electronic devices (such as phones, laptops, and watches), hybrid and electric vehicles, and power grid storage systems, with a CAGR of 17% and a global value of around 93.1 billion USD, expected to increase over the course of the years. This growing demand has driven researchers to explore various arrangements and configurations of energy storage materials to enhance the efficiency, capacity, size, and stacking capabilities of LIBs, leading to commercially available LIBs with specific energies ranging from 150 to 300 Wh/kg, and up to 700 Wh/kg for experimental prototypes. However, as the world focuses on sustainability, it is critical to examine the sustainability of LIBs and their disposal. This review aims to compile and analyze the technological advancements and innovations to improve the overall performance and operational conditions of LIBs, while pursuing to assess the environmental and social impacts of LIB minerals' mining, production, and disposal, by exploring necessary interventions from the modern slavery statement at the upstream level, to the e‐waste management or recycling processes (hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, etc.) downstream. This review also serves as a comprehensive overview of the current state of LIBs, recent developments, especially in the domain of biopolymer‐derived electrolytes and self‐healing mechanisms (intrinsic and extrinsic), and the LIBs management system (BMS), which is helpful to produce cleaner and safer energy storage systems, allowing LIB technology to achieve sustainability targets.